Apple
is gearing up for a massive legal battle against mobile phone
industry heavyweight Nokia. Nokia is the largest phone market in the
world while Apple has one of the most popular and profitable
smartphones in the world with its iPhone.

The legal storm has
been brewing for months and Apple is gearing up by retaining some of
the best
IP lawyers in the country to fight Nokia. Bloomberg reports
that since 2008 Apple has been the most sued technology firm in the
world. The legal team Apple has put together has been responsible for
winning some of the biggest patent suits in the technology
world.

Nokia
sued Apple in October of 2009 alleging that Apple was
infringing on several of its patents. Apple filed a countersuit of
its own alleging the same thing. Apple claimed at the time the goal
in the Nokia suit was to get Apple to turn over proprietary
technology that sets the iPhone apart from the other smartphones on
the market. Nokia denies the charges.

Attorney Lyle Vander
Schaaf, who has handled IP cases before the ITC before says, "These
are very well-known, deep-pocketed, high-end manufacturers. Usually
you have one 800-pound gorilla going after a new entrant. Here you’ve
got 800-pound gorillas fighting each other."

In addition
to bringing in outside legal assets to fight the suit, Apple also has
a new in-house attorney that specializes in IP, Noreen Krall. Krall
was chief IP counsel for Sun Micrososystems and a staff IP attorney
for IBM in the past. The other legal assets Apple has called in
included Robert Krupa from Kirkland & Ellis. Krupa negotiated the
settlement between Apple and Creative Technology in 2005 that had
Apple pay $100 million to Creative.

William Lee from
WilmerHale represented Broadcom Corp. in the legal fight against
Qualcomm is part of the team. Apple also has Matt Powers from Weil,
Gotshal, & Manges LLP that represented pharmaceutical giant Merck
& Co in a patent case over its drug Singulair. Most expect the
outcome of this suit to be a settlement between Apple and Nokia to
license each other's tech. Rob Enderle from Enderle Group said, "It’s
[the legal battle] going to get a lot worse before it gets better."

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